Title: Disease
Artist: Minusheart
Genre: Electronic
Release Date: 16th October 2009
Label: Echozone
Album Review
This electro band with hints of industrial was founded in 2007 by Diver and Benden and hail from Aachen. 'Disease' is their first LP and is enhanced by the guest vocals of Myk Jung, of THE FAIR SEX, and female guest vocals of Taya, which really add an eerie and ethereal theme to some of the songs. I like the opening track 'Ice house' very much. It's a great club tune, has got a good line in lyrics and is very up close and personal in a semi spoken style of singing with a catchiness that made me sorry it was over so soon, but glad that the first track was of such a high standard. Anything which has a lyric that runs repeatedly “Don't feed the cats please, don't feed the cats please, don't feed... etc...” has got to be okay by me. Called slightly obviously 'Don't feed the cats' this is a great track, being stupidly singable, melodic and lyrically bizarre. It's become something of an anthem amongst people I've played it to. It's a wicked, wicked club tune and one that I hope to hear lots more of.
'Feel no pain' is a hard driving, head crippler that tears through your speakers, reaches out and grabs you by the throat. It should be noted at this point that the sound quality is absolutely fantastic, which is down to the earnest efforts of Dirk Steyer who mastered this album. It has to be said that he did a top job, with levels at perfection. 'Poison lies' underlines MINUSHEART's tendency to not be quite like anyone else. The structure of the song is irrational and verging on the downright peculiar, but this is all good, it simply makes the whole thing far more interesting than many other bands in the same genre. It's a dark and sinister track and therefore something that I really like. A great piano over-laid by hard driving synth beats begin this next track, with the same sinister sounding vocals, but this time they have a melancholy feel to them as well. It soon becomes more melodic, with a desperate sounding tune that acts as a nice interlude. My favourite track of the album!
'Trace of a monster' starts very tunefully with ethereal vocal effect until the main vocals come in with familiar caustic edge. It's a clean cut song you think and then suddenly out of nowhere a super catchy interlude appears and changes the whole flavour of the track before we're back with the trade mark hard hissed vocals. A nicely produced track that's very strong. 'Carnival of hearts' has a slightly retro feel to it, and is far more akin to the kind of music you'd have heard in any Berlin club in 1988, than something you expect to turn up on a contemporary album, but it really works and although not my favourite track of the album it's certainly the most memorable and the one that's stuck in my mind. 'Lifespan' is the only weak track on the whole album, and in truth felt like a filler. It was flat and predictable and had nothing of the spark that the other tracks have.
'Beat of innocence', however, redeemed the album for me immediately, as tuneful and subtle melodies slunk about behind an electronic noise designed to disturb. Coupled with the oddly disconcerting things like little bouts of laughter it takes a full two minutes before the vocal arrives with some kicking lyrics, uncompromising and determined. A thoroughly well put together track. The tune to 'Burning star' is too eerily like 'Clovenhoof' by TIAMAT to my ears for me to really escape from those connotations, but it's actually a great track, very intense and memorable and one of the best on the whole album. It's a perfect end to the album proper.
Bonus Tracks
To finish the album we have four bonus remix's, the first of which is 'Icehouse (Fragment Machinery mix)'. This is a track I believe where everything comes together perfectly. It's more sinister than they could have possibly hoped for, with surreal vocoded vocals and endless noises you can't identify, but which worry the hell out of you anyway. It's a real triumph of remixing. “Don’t feed the cats please.... don't feed the cats please...” The Gaz remix version of this is as enjoyable as the original but not really sufficiently different for it to be on the same album in my opinion. Still, can you really ever get too much of signing “Don’t feed the cats...”? Probably not, or maybe that’s just me.
I'm not a huge fan of remixes unless they're done stupendously well, so the last four tracks were always going to struggle to please me, but 'Feel no pain (Config.Sys mix)' pulled it off, being more gutsy, driving and altogether more rip your head off than even the original version. The final track 'Lifespan (Monolith mix) ' is considerably better than the lacklustre original, but still not one of the stronger tracks on the album, and it's a shame this track is the last we hear of them on this album in it's entirety. In essence this was a good strong album, only let down by a couple of tracks, but the tracklist could have been better arranged so as to finish on a high note such as 'Beat of Innocence' instead of this remix which left me feeling slightly unfulfilled. Of the 14 tracks on this album a good eleven of them are excellent and at least 2 of them have joined the ranks of my current playlist, making it an excellent debut offering.
Tracklist
01. Icehouse
02. Don't feed the cats
03. Feel no pain
04. Poison lies
05. Future lies
06. Trace of a monster
07. Carnival of hearts
08. Lifespan
09. Beat of innocence
10. Burning star
---
11. Icehouse (Fragment Machinery mix)
12. Don't feed the cats (Accessory mix)
13. Feel no pain (Config.Sys mix)
14. Lifespan (Monolith mix)
Line-up
DIVER - arrangements, vocals
bendeN - arrangements, productions
Website
http://www.the-diver.net/ / http://www.myspace.com/minusheart
Cover-Picture
Rating
Music: 7
Sound: 8
Extras: -
Total: 7.5 / 10
{jos_sb_discuss:19}
Comments powered by CComment